Page - 69 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

Mediality and Materialityin the History of Religions | 69www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 65–71 sponsoring religious buildings was not a privilege of the ruling elite. at least one Coptic woman supported the renovation of a church, wrote abu salih, a probably Coptic author of a history of the churches in egypt up to the 12th century: in the hamrâ also is the church of saint Onuphrius, the holy man, the pilgrim, the contem- plative, which was restored by a woman named Turfah, according to the testimony of an [inscribed] board which was put up at the door of it, near the well which is now filled up: and through this door the women entered.12 she must have been a wealthy woman if she had the funds to sponsor a renovation and to leave an epigraph. her status did not prevent her name being mentioned. her name could be seen by everyone, by men as well, even if the site of the inscription marked a door for women. another important genre of texts is formed by the contracts for selling and inherit- ing houses. The famous Geniza documents from the synagogue in the antique settle- ment of fustat in southern Cairo refer to several women as owners, heirs and donors of buildings used for caritative purposes. Jewish women were explicitly allowed to possess wealth – like women in islamic law. it is obvious to everybody who has seen photographs of these documents that we must speak of “materials” when we refer to the thousands of small papers stored for centuries in a closet. solomon Goitein worked on the Geniza documents of a legal character concerning houses, some of them dedicated to the support of synagogues or the poor, probably from the profits made from renting apartments: This parceling of a house into some sections devoted to pious purposes and others given to various relatives or other persons is well illustrated by the deathbed declaration of a wom- an made in November 1006, in which she willed one-sixth of her house to each of the two synagogues of fustat and another three-sixths to a brother, a niece, and a girl (in order to enable her to marry). The value of one-twelfth had already been spent for repairs, and the remaining twelfth was earmarked for the transportation of the testator‘s body to Palestine for interment in the holy City. in or around 1161 a woman donated one-quarter of a house, which she held in partnership with another proprietor, ‘to the poor’ and one-sixth to a person not described as her rela- tive.13 MeDialiTy Or MaTerialiTy? how are we to deal with these written clues about buildings? Parallel to lövheim’s context of “new media”, we can assume that the historical patronage of architecture 12 Ibn al-Mukaffac 1968, 111. 13 Goitein 1983, 89.